


Secure, Contain, Protect

by EnergonGiraffes



Category: SCP Foundation, Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-31
Updated: 2013-08-31
Packaged: 2017-12-25 06:01:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/949488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EnergonGiraffes/pseuds/EnergonGiraffes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos being a scientist who works for the SCP foundation has seen his share of death, but there one that will never leave his memories. He doesn't want to break down in front of his best friend and Boy friend, but sometimes you cant exactly stop what your mind wants to do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Secure, Contain, Protect

**Author's Note:**

> I have a head canon that Carlos is an SCP scientist. And you don't come out of that without witnessing a few deaths.

Carlos’ was sat on his boyfriends couch. Said boyfriend, Cecil, was seated next to him, leaning onto him.

 

Carlos had put his arm around the thinner man long ago and it had since gone numb. He didn't care. Hardly even noticed. It was the fifth, maybe sixth date. Carlos was starting to lose track. Was this even a date? They were just hanging out again. It was nice to not have to work as they both had tiring and hectic work schedules and where both usually too done by the end of the day to go out anywhere. So they just went to each others houses; watched TV, ate dinner, chatted, or just sat together. He hated that he had to work sometimes. Sometimes he wished he could just be with his tiny and odd boyfriend all the time. He wished He had the energy at the end of the day to take him out on real dates instead of ordering fast food because he was too tired to cook.

 

He hadn’t been close to someone in ages and he felt like he was screwing up everything; though really he had no choice.

 

The Sound on the TV was a soft drone in his ears, too late to be loud. Carlos glanced over at Cecil. He was starting to doze off; all three stunning purple eyes heavy lidded as they tried in vain to watch the screen. He wondered why it was Cecil who always called him perfect when he felt like that was wrong and that is should be the other way around. But everything in this town was backwards so he let it slide. Carlos’s eyes were getting heavy too. He leaned his head against Cecil’s, taking in his smell; static and autumn. How either of those had a smell he didn’t know, but it was what it was.

 

There was a crash on the TV and Carlos' eyes snapped open. At some time a talk show had come one. Something about UFOs and the like. The crash had be a dramatization shot that he didn't catch. But something was off and it set his heart into beating an increasing rhythm against his ribcage.

 

And then Carlos twitched. The interviewer. It wasn't who he thought it was and he knew that. That man; the man Carlos thought he had seen, had died a few years ago; But the resemblance was uncanny and It was enough to make bile bubble in the back of his throat; hot and acidic. He tore his eyes from the screen and tried to find where he had set the remote. His heart was beating faster now, beating a tattoo inside of him. It hurt.

 

The voice too. god it was his. there was no way it wasn't. Carlos grabbed the remote his brain screaming like oil was thrown on it; screaming for him to change the channel. But his hand were shaking so bad and his unfocused eyes couldn’t find the right button And the fact that he couldn't help but look at the recording date.

 

Four years ago.

 

Geoff was doing journalism at that time and; as the camera click back to the mans face, Carlos know it was him. He dropped the remote and watched in fear as it clattered to the ground.

 

This couldn't be happening now. Not with Cecil in the room who was already beginning to stir. He glanced over at the three eyes next to him; looking up, confused and dazed. He saw Cecil's skin, pale, saw it tearing. Saw flashes of colour, bursting and roaring like fireworks too close to be safe. The world was bright. too bright. He was getting up and he didn't know why. His knees shook and he felt hot sticky heat at the base of his throat again. He snapped his eyes shut in the middle of the room. Tried to will away the memories. Hot liquid bubbled at his caruncle; threatened to spill. He was balling his fists. He felt high. Like he was on the top of a mountain that Cecil didn't believed existed. And he knew he needed to calm down because Cecil is there and he can feel all three of his eyes on him and hes going to fall down that mountain hard and break something and there will be blood and pain and muscle tearing. He looks down at a chair and the circled pattern on its back magnifies and he can see every single one of those close together circles and its too much. He feels trapped and can feel his heart beating a rhythm to fast on his ribcage and he feels like hes going to die.

 

Memories flash more clearly against his already hazy vision. As if he’s there again.

 

Orion’s Belt is one of the biggest SCP Areas known to date. It goes hundreds of miles under the ground. He worked on the lower level. It was all research all day. They hardly ever got to see the sun but it was heaven. State of the art facilities with anything you could ever need to conduct any test you could dream of – and some you couldn't..

 

Geoff was one of the level threes that worked on the lower level. They had not dated but everyone thought that they should be. Hell, Carlos thought they should be. They basically where, except without any romance involved. Platonic life partners, Carlos had come to call it. they were best friends and more. Simple and to the point.

 

Break outs hardly ever happened. The SCP foundation is good at what it does to say it lightly. But it does happen. Usually due to human error.

 

Carlos didn't know which SCP had broken confinement. He was never told and he didn't want to know. But you couldn't see it. He knew that. There was nothing there. Nothing conceivable was there as it ripped his friend apart. He had watched, couldn't tear his eyes away, had been too close to move or to run, had felt the heat of the thing; whatever it was as it ripped into his friend. And he had felt it next to him. He felt its body even though it wasn't there. Had felt its skin and had excepted his death. And then it was gone. leaving Carlos alone next to the red and white remains of what used to be his friend. And he had sat there, shaking, sobbing, until a squad of men with guns and armor had found him, made sure he wasn't contaminated in any way, and then carried his still shaking forum back to the surface.

 

He had been moved to a different place after that. Another Area called Delta and then shortly after to a Command called Vigil.

 

He was brought back to the present by two shaking hands on his shoulder. He breathed in a shuddering sob and latched himself like a starfish onto his smaller framed friend; burying his face into his neck. His hands found his boyfriends back and they both slowly collapsed onto the floor, holding each other.

 

“I’m sorry…” Carlos finally said through a sob. Cecil shook his head against him.

 

“You don’t have to be sorry, my perfect Carlos. What’s wrong?” Cecil crooned into his ear, a long fingered hand brushing his hair out of his face, Lips press to his forehead. Carlos looked up still shaking – and he sees the officer that found him above him instead of Cecil.  
And there are needles in his skin again and people all around him are poking and prodding at him and it hurts. And he can’t see straight. And he cant move. He tells the people around him hes fine. Help Geoff, he needs help, He’s dying. Don’t you understand. My friend is dying. It didn't touch me. Please just stop. But they don’t stop. They don’t even say anything to him. They don’t even tell him if Geoff is alright although he keeps asking and begging them to tell him. Every time he leans forward to try to see his friend they push him back done against the much to cooled tiles. And then Cecil is back and his eyes are glassy and hes worried and he shouldn't be.

 

The memories, the lights, the exaggerated colours and sounds, are slowly but surely fading and he buries his head back into Cecil's heck and Cecil doesn't press and Carlos kisses his neck because usually people press him and he hates answering questions when hes like this.

 

The panic attacks used to happen more often. The triggering would happen almost daily. He’d see blood on the tv, a vial of red in his samples, a claw of some unknown animal, hearing the floors creak at night when he was home alone. But then he started to see a SPC therapist and she’d gotten him pills and those had worked but he had run out about a week ago and the ones he had ordered a couple days ago hadn't gotten to Night vale yet.

 

He sat back after a while. “I’m okay now.” He mumbled to a still worried Cecil who just smiled lightly, leaning in to place kisses on Carlos' noes. “It was about two years ago now.” His voice is hoarse from sobbing and he coughs to clear his throat praying to a god he doesn’t believe in that his voice wont break. That he wont worry the person he loves so much. “there was some sort of outbreak in the place I used to work and I watched someone I cared about die….and the guy on the TV - “Carlos pointed dumbly with a still shaking hand. “That was him and I just -” His hopeful pryers as his voice stutters and breaks and he folds into Cecil, no longer crying just shaking. Cecil shushed him, rubbing hands along his back and whispering to him in an odd language that he doesn’t understand but but hes heard before. Every week. The music that lives within this town. And It calms him, envelopes him. “I can’t really say much else.” he mumbles against Cecil and Cecil doesn't ask if its because he doesn't want to or if its something to do with where he came from and Carlos loves him for that.

 

The Panic is a fading headache now and hes barely shaking and his breathing is going back to normal. And hes pushing the images out of his head again; trying to overwrite them with images of Cecil and Night Vale. “You mind if I stay, Ceec?” Carlos asks. “Shouldn't really drive home after one of these. I'll call command tomorrow and figure out when my medicine will get here.” Cecil nods and this is the most calm hes ever seen him and its odd. The normally Spastic and loud man who is usually jumping of walls and shouting about things that don’t scientificley make sense. but the calm is needed and it makes Carlos feel safe.

 

“Its probably the best choice.” Cecil says, standing, bring Carlos up with him. “Curfew started about an hour ago anyway. Bed?” Carlos nods and takes Cecil’s hand as they head up the stairs and to a bedroom Carlos has never seen before. And Carlos is ready for tomorrow already, ready to replace another bad memory with the new one of waking up beside his boyfriend for the first time.

 

He feels secure and he feels protected with Cecil by him. Being Contained; that's something that had left Carlos after he had left the lower levels of Orion’s Belt. Night Vale; for all its oddities, has never made Carlos feel trapped. Not with Cecil with him.


End file.
